Determination of leucocyte concentrations in cow's milk with a Coulter counter

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Abstract
Summary: A technique for determining the concentration of leucocytes in cow's milk is described which is more rapid and accurate as well as much less tedious than conventional microscope methods. The leucocytes are isolated from the fat globules of comparable size by a novel centrifuging procedure. Sizing of the leucocytes with a Coulter electronic counter shows that their volumes range from about 45 to 1770 µm3but a partially overlapping distribution of other particulate matter prevents the accurate determination of the total number of cells present. The numbers counted in truncated leucocyte distributions, however, correlate linearly with total cell counts determined with an improved microscope method up to 6 × 106cells/ml of milk.